Northern Ireland Housing Executive: Accounts 2002–03

Baroness Amos: My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Northern Ireland has made the following Ministerial Statement.
	The accounts of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIA 8/03) for the year ended 31 March 2003 incorporating the reports of the Local Government Auditor and the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon will be laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly on Thursday 18 March 2004.
	Copies of the Northern Ireland Assembly paper have been placed in the House of Commons Library at Westminster and in the Northern Ireland Assembly Library at Stormont.

Code for Crown Prosecutors

Lord Goldsmith: I wish to announce the start of a review of the code for Crown prosecutors following the recent developments in prosecutors' powers. Section 10 of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 requires the Director of Public Prosecutions to issue a code for Crown prosecutors in order to give guidance on the general principles to be applied in prosecutorial decision making. It enables casework decisions to be made fairly, consistently and independently.
	The code is an important public document, which allows everyone to see and understand the basis upon which prosecution decisions are made. The code is kept under continual review to ensure that its principles remain appropriate. The current edition of the code was published in October 2000, which involved an extensive internal, external and public consultation exercise.
	Following the public consultation process last time, every aspect of the code was reconsidered and the basic principles were acknowledged as being sound. Accordingly, this review will not extend to any reconsideration of the basic two-test principle of prosecuting on the basis of ensuring that the evidence provides a realistic prospect of conviction and that it is in the public interest to prosecute the case.
	This review will therefore be limited in scope to the implications of a number of key recent developments, which have the potential to impact on decisions made within the framework of the code. The most significant of these is the charging initiative under which prosecutors will assume responsibility from the police for determining appropriate charges to bring against alleged offenders, introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. There are also other significant changes to be considered, such as conditional cautioning.
	The Crown Prosecution Service, with appropriate consultation, is therefore to review the code for Crown prosecutors to take account of these recent developments. The review team has now been established and will be writing to organisations and individuals with an interest in the code, asking for comments on the particular areas under consideration.
	I welcome this review and will be taking a close interest in its progress.

Service Personnel Process Review

Lord Bach: My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ivor Caplin) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	With effect from 1 April 2004 the three single Service personnel agencies will cease to have agency status. This decision came about from the Service personnel process review conducted last year and referred to by my right honourable friend for Member for East Kilbride on 17 July 2002 (Official Report, col. 277–78W).
	The review also identified that the career management and manpower planning work of the three Service manning agencies did not wholly suit agency status, because they were primarily support and enabling functions rather than concerned with the provision of a clear and discreet deliverable service. I therefore concluded that agency status for the agencies (Naval Manning, Army Personnel and RAF Personnel Management Agency) should cease.
	I am pleased to tell the House that a considerable amount of work continues in many other areas. These include further reviews of tri-service recruiting and welfare and many of the review recommendations have been swept into a service personnel plan, parallel with and linked to the equipment programme and within the framework of the defence White Paper published last December.
	I intend to report on further progress to the House later in the year.

Cottam Flue Gas Desulphurisation Plant

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My honourable friend the Minister for Energy, E-commerce and Postal Services (Stephen Timms) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	I have today granted consent under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to EDF Energy (Cottam Power) Limited for the construction of flue gas desulphurisation plant at the 2,000 MW coal-fired power station at Cottam in Nottinghamshire. Planning permission for the plant has also been deemed to be granted, subject to 54 planning conditions agreed with the Nottinghamshire County Council and Bassetlaw District Council.
	The consent is for the final two units with the first two having already obtained consent in August 2002 and being currently under construction.

Equal Pay

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My honourable friend the Deputy Minister for Women and Equality (Jacqui Smith) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	I have today published a consultation document on proposals to streamline equal value tribunal cases. Equal pay cases can be notoriously slow and complex, particularly the large-scale cases concerning questions of whether jobs are of equal value. Our proposals to speed up and simplify these cases form part of a package of measures to improve the way the Equal Pay Act 1970 works in practice. For example, last year we introduced the equal pay questionnaire and lengthened the time limits for bringing cases and for making arrears payments.
	The overall aim of our new proposals is to make the tribunal process work as effectively as possible and to tackle the lengthy delays that can occur in the more complex cases. Key features include: providing the Employment Tribunal presidents of England and Wales, and of Scotland, with the power to appoint tribunals with a specialist knowledge of equal value cases; promoting firmer case management, for example, through providing standard directions to ensure early exchange of information; streamlining complex rules of procedure; and ensuring more effective use of independent experts. The new provisions dovetail with the proposed new Employment Tribunal Regulations and rules of procedure. The intention is that, subject to parliamentary approval, these measures should come into effect on 1 October 2004.
	The consultation document will be placed on the DTI and Women and Equality Unit websites so that it is available to the wider public. The consultation period will run for 12 weeks, with a closing date for comments of 10 June 2004. Copies of the consultation document have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.